Thank you to all who have made their pledge for our capital campaign. We are very excited to report that, as of Sunday, December 13, a total of 211 households have given $1,762,098 in first fruits gifts and three year pledges. We also anticipate many more pledges will be made in the coming weeks.

If you haven't already, please mail, or drop off your pledge this week at the church office. If you have any questions on how to complete your card, please contact Sandy Randolph.

Background

By the end of this year, I will have served as pastor at St. Luke for 18 years. For 20 years, (preceding my arrival) there have been conversations and plans to build a new sanctuary! 15 years ago, we decided to build the MPR (Multi-Purpose Room) first, for two reasons: at the time we couldn't raise the needed funds to build a sanctuary and there was a great need for what the MPR would offer. By this December, 12 years after its completion, because of great generosity, we will have the MPR paid off and be able to go forward with the next big need in our ministry.

What is the next great need in our ministry? Two and a half years ago we surveyed the congregation asking that question. The two overwhelming and consistent responses were: 1) a new, larger sanctuary and 2) an Associate Pastor. We tried to pursue the Associate Pastor, but to no avail, so we developed an alternative strategy to properly staff our ministry, and that has been working thus far. A year ago, knowing we would soon be paying off our mortgage and people were asking, now what?, we developed a Vision Team to explore what the greatest need is for the future development of our ministry. After exploring all of the needs (and there are many), the Vision Team came to the same conclusion that the survey suggested previously: a new, larger sanctuary is the next great need. When a congregation is worshipping at 80% of its capacity (which many of our worship services are) then people, especially visitors are being turned away or deterred from coming.

The Vision Team determined that the project needs to focus on three things: the sanctuary, narthex and parking. The new sanctuary will facilitate more seating and will accommodate both traditional and contemporary worship, Whitworth and other visiting music groups, and be a design that is attractive on our highly visible site.

the proposed project

Current sanctuary will become the narthex/fellowship hall/welcoming center/overflow for large worship services.

The new sanctuary will seat 400 (without folding chairs lined up the sides).

The parking will be expanded to the northwest part of our property with additional parking available on the northeast part of our property.

Ultimately, the scope of the project will be determined by our shared responses and generosity. We are hoping that at bare minimum we will be able to build the proposed sanctuary, portico/entry, remodel the current sanctuary into a welcome center/fellowship hall/overflow, remodel and expand our current bathrooms and pave the northwest corner of the parking lot. To do "just" that will be approximately a $3 million project. That does not include the proposed parking lot on the other side of the house on Graves Rd, nor the proposed nursery, nor any improvements to the Sunday School area, nor the dividing wall for the new fellowship hall (current sanctuary) to facilitate overflow. We are hoping that there might be enough generosity to facilitate one or more of the additions to the project.

Building goal:

Our goal is to raise $1.5 million, or more, in first fruit gifts and three-year pledges toward the project.

Raising $1.75 million ($250,000 additional) will provide additional enhancements to the project.

Our individual and collective responses will determine the scope of the project,